Gaining the good stuff as I lose the bad.

Month: April 2017

I’ve been struggling with some hard core depression for about a month now and last week that was joined by a return of the most hard core anxiety situation that I can remember, for a period of almost 4 days.

This was the real deal–chest pain, trouble breathing, digestive issues–for almost 4 days. Days during which I had to do things, like care for an infant and pick up older children and see people, which was incredibly difficult and made the anxiety much worse. Even with the buspar that I take when the anxiety gets rough I was not in any way ok. I found myself taking meds to make myself sleepier, not to sleep but to calm the anxiety.

It was terrible.

But after a mostly restful weekend I am doing better today, and I have minimal commitments this week, so hopefully that will continue to be true.

Tomorrow I’m scheduled to meet with the integrative medicine lady at my new therapist’s office. Apparently that’s largely acupuncture, which is (unbelievably) covered by my insurance?? I’m not convinced about the acupuncture but am willing to have that conversation, anyway.

I saw the doctor this morning. I asked for an increase in my wellbutrin dosage but instead she’s adding a second med into the current dosage, she thinks that will work better to help alleviate the depression. It’s true that for the last month or so, it has felt like the wellbutrin isn’t working at at all.

I saw the new therapist last week and I’ll see her again tomorrow. She seems fine. It’s a little early to know for sure if it’ll be a really good fit but I think it will. She has a therapy dog, which is nice, because I like dogs. Although I feel guilty about spending time with dogs when my own are not getting walked as much as I’d like.

The doctor also pushed really hard on the exercise concept, she wants me to be exercising far more, ostensibly for my mood. Which is fine, I believe that it is fairly well accepted that exercise helps with mood.

Although it’s obviously much harder to exercise when you’re mired in a depression that will not let go. It’s much easier to wallow and I very much would like to wallow. But I have a baby that needs constant care and that keeps me waking up every morning and doing basic life activities. I make him baby food, I wash dishes and laundry, I sweep the floor, basic things like that to keep him alive and in a good place.

It’s my sincere hope that in time, I will feel better and won’t have to force myself to do things every day.

This is what it’s like, when you have depression. You go through your life and you’re doing ok, and then depression sneaks up on you. It’s like when you watch nature shows and the lion takes out the gazelle.

I do not like being a gazelle in this situation.

What I’m having as an issue right now, though, is the mental paralysis.

You know when you’re smushed up against the side of the car because there’s too many people in it? Or when you’re sitting between two big people on an airplane? And you can’t move properly and you feel trapped?

That’s what my brain is doing.

Think about how hard it is to open your airline snacks when you’re trapped like that, and that’s how hard thinking has been for me this past week or so. It’s like I have to focus and work hard to complete a single thought of any value.

It’s exhausting.

And it’s frustrating, too.

Everything is much harder in this situation. Planning is hard. Talking is hard. Decision making is very hard. It’s all tricky.

The good news is that I have found a new therapist (the old one is not covered by this year’s insurance) and I start on Friday. I hope to have some better thought processes sometime soon.